“CrossFit Chick” Loses Weight & Improves Breast Health With Paleo

This is a woman’s Paleo story that inspired us so much, we decided to make a whole blog post out of it. After all, Paleo is not just about weight loss, and this story is a perfect example of that.

My name is Betsy Hodgdon and I’m 40 years old. I have a 10 year old daughter and I work full time for an online language learning company. I travel for work and I’ve figured out how to do Paleo on the road, something I’m quite proud of!

I started CrossFit about 3 years ago after I heard someone talk about it in line at Starbucks. I stumbled into the gym where I’ve worked out, not knowing what I was getting myself into! I have always worked out: I taught aerobics in the 90’s, I ran a marathon and had my personal training certification. I always shared my love of fitness and talked about how much better I felt, but when I found CrossFit, I felt like I’d found my niche! I loved that it was always something new, how you could push to compete against yourself and the community was great! But the results I saw when I put together Paleo and CrossFit were what made the biggest difference with me. After I had my daughter, I had gained about 75 pounds. I am only 5 feet tall. I lost it over several years, looking back, I was eating mainly Paleo without realizing that’s what I was doing. I cut out all processed foods and ate clean protein and vegetables.

Then, after several years of maintaining that loss, I had shoulder surgery spring of 2011 and when I was able to get back to working out, I realized I had gained some weight. Sitting around, healing will do that to you! It was comforting to know that I knew just what to do! This is 8 weeks back on Paleo and regular (although modified for my shoulder) CrossFit workouts.

I’ve always shared my love of fitness with my friends and have had a blog for the past 3 years. Looking back, it’s as much a diary as it is information on fitness, but it’s how I’ve dealt with all sorts of things in my life using fitness as catharsis! I am getting CrossFit Level 1 certified in January and am so excited to spend the weekend with other CrossFitters! I just want to learn as much as I can and after my certification, I’ll help out at a friend’s gym and of course, continue to share my ideas on my blog.

When I made the change to Paleo, I noticed huge and FAST changes to my body. I looked much better, lost fat and felt better. Looking back, I wonder if I have a mild gluten allergy. I wrote a post on my blog about my experience with a negative mammogram I had when I turned 40. In the end, I found I had terrible cysts in my breast and I made a huge turnaround by tightening up my Paleo diet and sticking to a plan. I wish I could make doctors tell everyone about Paleo who comes in with this condition. Now, I eat very clean Paleo all week, and on Saturdays, I eat the things I may have been craving during the week. This really works for me and I found the one day of gluten exposure doesn’t affect me in a noticeable way.

I travel for work and have managed to stick to Paleo while traveling, too. The weeks I am at home, I like to experiment with recipes and I love have the resources available here at PaleoPlan. It is really helpful to have friends that eat Paleo, too! We all go out to eat, have potlucks and share recipes! Hard things are easier with friends… and soon those hard things don’t seem so hard.